New to KubeDB? Please start here.
Using Custom Configuration File
KubeDB supports providing custom configuration for Ignite. This tutorial will show you how to use KubeDB to run Ignite with custom configuration.
Before You Begin
At first, you need to have a Kubernetes cluster, and the kubectl command-line tool must be configured to communicate with your cluster. If you do not already have a cluster, you can create one by using kind.
Now, install KubeDB cli on your workstation and KubeDB operator in your cluster following the steps here.
To keep things isolated, this tutorial uses a separate namespace called
demothroughout this tutorial.$ kubectl create ns demo namespace/demo created $ kubectl get ns demo NAME STATUS AGE demo Active 5s
Note: YAML files used in this tutorial are stored in docs/examples/ignite folder in GitHub repository kubedb/docs.
Overview
Ignite does not allows to configuration via any file. However, configuration parameters can be set as arguments while starting the ignite docker image. To keep similarity with other KubeDB supported databases which support configuration through a config file, KubeDB has added an additional executable script on top of the official ignite docker image. This script parses the configuration file then set them as arguments of ignite binary.
To know more about configuring Ignite server see here.
At first, you have to create a config file named node-configuration.xml with your desired configuration. Then you have to put this file into a volume. You have to specify this volume in spec.configSecret section while creating Ignite crd. KubeDB will mount this volume into /usr/config directory of the database pod.
In this tutorial, we will enable ignite’s authentication via secret.
Create a secret with custom configuration file:
apiVersion: v1
stringData:
node-configuration.xml: |
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd">
<!-- Ignite Configuration -->
<bean class="org.apache.ignite.configuration.IgniteConfiguration">
<property name="authenticationEnabled" value="true"/>
</bean>
</beans>
kind: Secret
metadata:
name: ignite-configuration
namespace: demo
resourceVersion: "4505"
Here, authenticationEnabled's default value is false. In this secret, we make the value true.
$ kubectl apply -f ignite-configuration.yaml
secret/ignite-configuration created
Let’s get the ignite-configuration secret with custom configuration:
$ kubectl get secret -n demo ignite-configuration -o yaml
apiVersion: v1
data:
node-configuration.xml: 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
kind: Secret
metadata:
annotations:
kubectl.kubernetes.io/last-applied-configuration: |
{"apiVersion":"v1","kind":"Secret","metadata":{"annotations":{},"name":"ignite-configuration","namespace":"demo","resourceVersion":"4505"},"stringData":{"node-configuration.xml":"\u003c?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?\u003e\n\u003cbeans xmlns=\"http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans\"\n xmlns:xsi=\"http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance\"\n xsi:schemaLocation=\"http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans\n http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd\"\u003e\n\u003c!-- Your Ignite Configuration --\u003e\n\u003cbean class=\"org.apache.ignite.configuration.IgniteConfiguration\"\u003e\n\n \u003cproperty name=\"authenticationEnabled\" value=\"true\"/\u003e\n\n\u003c/bean\u003e\n\u003c/beans\u003e\n"}}
creationTimestamp: "2025-06-02T09:37:05Z"
name: ignite-configuration
namespace: demo
resourceVersion: "1391127"
uid: 57f2a44c-d6b1-4571-bb91-fd68b3048306
type: Opaque
Now, create Ignite crd specifying spec.configSecret field.
$ kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kubedb/docs/raw/v2025.6.30/docs/examples/ignite/configuration/custom-ignite.yaml
ignite.kubedb.com/custom-ignite created
Below is the YAML for the Ignite crd we just created.
apiVersion: kubedb.com/v1alpha2
kind: Ignite
metadata:
name: custom-ignite
namespace: demo
spec:
replicas: 3
version: 2.17.0
configSecret:
name: ignite-configuration
storage:
storageClassName: "standard"
accessModes:
- ReadWriteOnce
resources:
requests:
storage: 1Gi
deletionPolicy: WipeOut
Now, wait a few minutes. KubeDB operator will create necessary petset, services etc. If everything goes well, we will see that a pod with the name custom-ignite-0 has been created.
Check if the database is ready
$ kubectl get ig -n demo
NAME VERSION STATUS AGE
custom-ignite 2.17.0 Ready 17m
Now, we will check if the database has started with the custom configuration we have provided.
We will connect to custom-ignite-0 pod:
$ kubectl exec -it -n demo ignite-quickstart-0 -c ignite -- bash
[ignite@ignite-quickstart-0 config]$ cat /ignite/config/node-configuration.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-3.0.xsd">
<bean id="igniteCfg" class="org.apache.ignite.configuration.IgniteConfiguration">
...
...
<property name="authenticationEnabled" value="true"></property>
</bean>
</beans>
Here, we can see authenticationEnabled's value is true.
Cleaning up
To cleanup the Kubernetes resources created by this tutorial, run:
kubectl patch -n demo ig/custom-ignite -p '{"spec":{"deletionPolicy":"WipeOut"}}' --type="merge"
kubectl delete -n demo ig/custom-ignite
kubectl delete -n demo secret ignite-configuration
kubectl delete ns demo
If you would like to uninstall KubeDB operator, please follow the steps here.
Next Steps
- Learn how to use KubeDB to run a Ignite server here.
- Want to hack on KubeDB? Check our contribution guidelines.